Touchpoint customization system

ABSTRACT

A system for touchpoint content action customization at a current touchpoint to achieve a business objective includes a user touchpoint data capture unit and a content action optimization engine. The content action optimization engine is configured to select a plurality of candidate content actions for the current touchpoint based on content action metadata, to determine an observed percentage of success for an observed user behavior for each of the plurality of candidate content actions based on the user group to which the user belongs, and to determine a customized content action of the plurality of candidate content actions to implement at the current touchpoint to achieve the business objective that has the highest observed percentage of success.

PRIORITY

This application claims priority to U.S. provisional patent applicationSer. No. 61/169,892, filed on Apr. 16, 2009, and entitled “DigitalPlatform”, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

The Internet has become increasingly popular with the consuming publicand web pages on the Internet are considered powerful media foradvertising. Advertisements on web pages are directly linked to the webpages as fixed inline images, while more flexible systems allow aseparation of advertisement selection and placement, but offer only arandom selection mechanism. Many of the methods implemented byadvertisers are typically too simple to take advantage of thejust-in-time selection and delivery process available with web pageadvertisements. Although conventional filtering techniques allow forprecise targeting of the advertisements, the task of selecting whom totarget what advertisement are left to largely to the advertiser. Thisrequires extended efforts on the advertiser side, who has to rely oncountless statistics and demographic studies.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

The embodiments of the invention will be described in detail in thefollowing description with reference to the following figures.

FIG. 1 illustrates a system for touchpoint content action customization,according to an embodiment;

FIG. 2A illustrates an example of determining candidate content actions,according to an embodiment;

FIG. 2B illustrates an example of determining a customized contentaction, according to an embodiment;

FIG. 2C illustrates an additional example of determining a customizedcontent action, according to an embodiment;

FIG. 3 illustrates a tree structure, according to an embodiment;

FIG. 4 illustrates a method for touchpoint content action customization,according to an embodiment; and

FIG. 5 illustrates a block diagram of a computing system, according toan embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

For simplicity and illustrative purposes, the principles of theembodiments are described by referring mainly to examples thereof. Inthe following description, numerous specific details are set forth inorder to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments. It will beapparent however, to one of ordinary skill in the art, that theembodiments may be practiced without limitation to these specificdetails. In some instances, well known methods and structures have notbeen described in detail so as not to unnecessarily obscure theembodiments. Also, the embodiments described herein may be used witheach other in various combinations.

1. Overview

According to an embodiment of the invention, customized content actionsare provided to a user at multiple touchpoints the user visits for acustomized end-to-end user experience. A customized content action iscontent that is presented and/or an action that is performed. Thecontent or action is customized based on a user and their previousinteractions and other information. Examples of a customized contentaction may include a tactic, a strategy, a seminar, a button, a productpresentation or demonstration, a product catalog, product pricing,information about a product, a social media piece, frequently askedquestions presented to the user as additional information, etc.

As used herein, a “touchpoint” is a specific interaction between anentity and a user within a specific channel. An entity may be a company,another user or some other type of entity. A channel is a medium forproviding one or more touchpoints. Examples of channels include theInternet, TV, radio, etc. In instances where the channel is theInternet, examples of touchpoints may be a webpage or a portion of awebpage with which the user interacts.

The customized content action provided to the user at each touchpoint isbased on dynamic desired-outcome driven optimization. Thus, the systemdynamically presents a customized content action to a user at eachtouchpoint the user visits that is driven by a desired-outcome, such asa business objective. The business objective may include selling aparticular product to a user, directing the user to subscribe to aspecific service, etc. Thus, a user is funneled through varioustouchpoints, each with a customized content action, in a customizedend-to-end user experience to achieve the business objective. The systemprovides an enhanced automated content action selection process toprovide the user with a customized user display.

2. System

FIG. 1 illustrates a system 100 for content action customization,according to an embodiment. As shown therein, the system 100 includes auser touchpoint data capture unit 140, a user touchpoint database 150, acontent action optimization engine 160, a content action repository 170,and content action optimization model 180. It should be understood thatthe system 100 depicted in FIG. 1 may include additional components andthat some of the components described herein may be removed and/ormodified without departing from a scope of the system 100.

Users 110 a-n access touchpoints 120 a-n of a specific channel 115. Forexample, the channel 115 is the Internet and the touchpoints 120 a-n areweb site touchpoints. The users 110 a-n may access the web sitetouchpoints 120 a-n through end user devices connected to the Internet,such as, computers, laptops, cellular telephones, personal digitalassistants (PDAs), etc. According to an embodiment, when the users 110a-n access the web site touchpoints 120 a-n, the system 100 capturesuser data 130. For example, the user touchpoint data capture unit 140captures the user data 130 at each of the one or more touchpoints 120a-n that the user 110 a accesses or visits. The user touchpoint datacapture unit 140 may capture the user data 130 from HTML or Javascriptembedded in the touchpoint 120 a-n, from an agent running on a userdevice, from third party sources collecting user information, etc. Thecaptured user data 130 may include historical data about the course ofinteraction at the touchpoints 120 a-n already visited by the user,actions taken by the user and user attributes, such as gender,geographic location, purchase habits, etc.

As shown in FIG. 1, the user touchpoint data capture unit 140 stores thecaptured user data 130 in the user touchpoint database 150. In addition,the content action optimization engine 160 is depicted as receiving theuser data 130 from the user touchpoint database 150 and candidatecontent actions 195 from the content action repository 170. Moreover thecontent action optimization engine 160 is depicted as receiving abusiness objective 190. As discussed in greater detail herein below, thecontent action optimization engine 160 is generally configured to usethe user data 130 as well as the content action optimization model 180and business objective 190 to determine a customized content action 198for each of the touchpoints 120 a-n visited by the user 110 a.

The content action optimization model 180 includes historic informationregarding resulting user behavior in response to various content actionspresented to a type or segment of users having particular userattributes at specific touchpoints 120 a-n. In one example, the contentaction optimization model 180 includes user data grouped by attributes,touchpoints visited, content actions presented at the touchpoints andobserved user behavior. For example, one group may include Asian womenbetween 40 and 50 years. An observed user behavior for the group mayinclude that they purchased handbags priced over $150.00 55% of the timewhen presented with a certain content action at a certain touchpoint.Thus, the content action optimization model 180 may include manydifferent types of observed behavior for many different groups of usersfor different touchpoints, and this observed behavior may be used toestimate or predict behavior for various touchpoints and users.According to an embodiment, therefore, the content action optimizationmodel 180 may be generated based on the analysis of observed userbehavior and/or based on the analysis of historic data provided byexternal data sources.

Generally speaking, a company may input the business objective 190 to beachieved into the content action optimization engine 160. For example,the business objective 190 may include selling a particular product to auser, directing a user to subscribe to a specific service, or any otherdesired business outcome.

Based on the inputs, for instance, the content action optimization model180, the user data 130 and the business objective 190, the contentaction optimization engine 160 is configured to dynamically determinethe customized content action 198 to implement at a particulartouchpoint 120 a. By way of example, a plurality of content actions,which may include various tactics, strategies, seminars, buttons,product presentations or demonstrations, product catalogs, productpricing, information about products, social media pieces, frequentlyasked questions, etc., are stored in the content action repository 170.

The content action repository 170 also includes metadata associated witheach content action, which identifies each content action, describeseach content action, and describes how each content action is used. Themetadata also includes constraints for each content action, whichdescribes restrictions on the use of the content action, which may be inthe form of descriptors, instructional videos, etc. The constraints maydescribe at which touchpoint the content action may be implemented andfor which business objective the content action may be used. Forexample, a specific content action may only be used for a specifictouchpoint or for a specific segment of the population. According to anembodiment, the content actions are grouped according to correspondingbusiness objectives and touchpoints based on the content actionmetadata.

The content action optimization engine 160 determines which customizedcontent action to implement at a particular touchpoint. For example, theuser 110 a accesses the particular touchpoint 120 a, which comprises aweb page on the Internet. In order to determine the customized contentaction 198 to implement at the touchpoint 120 a for the user 110 a, thecontent action optimization engine 160 retrieves candidate contentactions 195 from the content action repository 170. Note that in someinstances the content action optimization engine 160 retrieves a singlecandidate content action 195. The candidate content actions 195 areretrieved based on the particular touchpoint 120 a that the user 110 ais visiting, as well as, the business objective 190 for which thecontent action is to be used. Thus, the candidate content actions 195are retrieved based on the metadata of the content actions in thecontent action repository 170.

In one example, the metadata for the content actions are compared tocurrent touchpoint information for a user to select the candidatecontent actions 195. For example, as shown in FIG. 2A, the contentaction repository 170 includes the content actions listed in table 210.As shown in the table 210, content actions A, B, and C are retrieved asthe candidate content actions 195 because the user is at touchpoint 120a and the business objective 190 is business objective 1. Moreparticularly, the content actions A, B, and C may be selected andretrieved as the candidate content actions 195 based upon informationcontained in the metadata for the content actions A, B and C. Incontrast, the metadata for content actions D-J describe the contentactions D-J as either not being used for touchpoint 120 a or not beingfor business objective 1.

Once the candidate content actions 195 are retrieved from the contentaction repository 170, the content action optimization engine 160 mayselect one of the candidate content actions 195 as the customizedcontent action 198 to be implemented at the touchpoint 120 a. In oneembodiment, the customized content action 198 is the candidate contentaction that is most likely to achieve the business objective 1. In oneexample, to determine the customized content action 198, the contentaction optimization engine 160 identifies a user group to which the user110 a belongs by matching the user attributes for the user 110 a storedin the user data 130 to the user group data in the optimization model180. For example, the content action optimization model 180 includesdata grouped by user groups. Each user group has a corresponding set ofattributes that can be matched to user attributes. Each user group inthe optimization model 180 may have associated categories includingtouchpoint visited, content action presented at the touchpoint andobserved user behavior. Then, based on the user group to which the user110 a belongs, the content action optimization engine 160 identifieseach of the candidate content actions 195 in the determined user group.The data associated with the identified content actions within the usergroup include an observed percentage of success at achieving thebusiness objective. In addition, the content action optimization engine160 analyzes the data associated with each of the identified contentactions in the content action optimization model 180 and may select thecandidate content action that has the highest percentage of the observedpercentage of success at achieving the business objective as thecustomized content action 198 to implement for the user 110 a at thetouchpoint 120 a. According to another embodiment, the content actionoptimization engine 160 uses different weighting schemes to select thecustomized content action 198.

FIG. 2B illustrates an example of information contained in the contentaction optimization model 180 for a single user group 221, shown asAsian Women in the age range of 40-50 years. For example, the userattributes in the captured user data 130 for the user 110 a are comparedwith the user groups in the content action optimization model 180. Ifthe user 110 a is a 44-year old Asian woman, then the content actionoptimization engine 160 uses the subset of data in the content actionoptimization model 180 for the user group 221 of Asian women between 40and 50. The user group 221 is part of a user group data subset in thecontent action optimization model 180 and includes content actions forseveral touchpoints and percentages of achieving the business objective190 for each content action, as shown in table 220 in FIG. 2B. Based onthe subset of data in the content action optimization model 180, thecontent action A has an observed behavior percentage of 50%, the contentaction B has an observed behavior percentage of 20% and the contentaction C has an observed behavior percentage of 30%. Thus, theidentified content action of the candidate content actions 195 with thehighest observed behavior percentage is the content action A at 50%, andtherefore the content action A is the customized content action 198, asshown in FIG. 2C. The customized content action 198 is then implementedat touchpoint 120 a for user 110 a.

The user data 130 for user 110 a is then updated with data regarding thecustomized content action 198 that was implemented at touchpoint 120 aand the user data 130 is again saved in the user touchpoint database150.

The user 110 a then may continue to the next touchpoint 120 b. Attouchpoint 120 b, a new customized content action to implement attouchpoint 120 b for user 110 a is determined based on the same stepsnoted above, based on the additional data saved with the captured userdata 130 including which content action was presented beforehand at eachtouchpoint visited by the user 110 a, and continues until the businessobjective 190 is achieved. Thus, the user 110 a is funneled through aplurality of touchpoints 120 a-n in which a customized content action ispresented at each touchpoint aimed to achieve the business objective190, until the business objective 190 is achieved.

According to an embodiment, the candidate content actions 195 arebranches of a tree structure. At each touchpoint, a new tree structureof candidate content actions 195 is formed since, at each touchpoint,updated user data is captured including the last touchpoint visited dataand user attributes. For example, in FIG. 3, at touchpoint 120 a, threebranches are shown as 310, 320 and 330. Each branch 310, 320 and 330,corresponds to the same user group which is determined based on userattributes as discussed above. Each branch 310, 320 and 330, is furtherdistinguished from each other based on the business objective to whichthe content action sub-branches pertain. For example, for each branch310, 320 and 330, a variety of candidate content actions 195 (A-Z) areshown. For business objective 1 and user group 221 listed as branch 310,content actions A, B and C are shown as sub-branches 340, 350 and 360,respectively. An observed user behavior and a percentage of observeduser behavior success is shown for each content action sub-branch 340,350 and 360. For example, for content action sub-branch 340, the“Observed User Behavior” is “Buy Purse” and the “Percentage” is “50%”.Thus, 50% of the time, when content action A listed as 340 isimplemented at touchpoint 120 a, the user in user group 221 buys thepurse. Thus, the tree structure formed at each touchpoint changesaccording to user attributes, last touchpoint visited, last contentaction presented, content action metadata, etc. In addition, the user isfunneled through a plurality of touchpoints in which a new treestructure is formed at each touchpoint aimed to achieve the businessobjective, until the business objective is achieved.

3. Method

FIG. 4 illustrates a flowchart of a method 400 for content actioncustomization at a touchpoint, according to an embodiment. It should beunderstood that the method 400 depicted in FIG. 4 may include additionalsteps and that some of the steps described herein may be removed and/ormodified without departing from a scope of the method 400. In addition,the method 400 may be implemented by the system 100 described above withrespect to FIG. 1 by way of example, but may also be practiced in othersystems.

At step 410, the system 100 receives input of a business objective 190.The business objective may be a business objective received from acompany. For example, the business objective may be to sell a product orservice.

At step 420, the system 100 captures user data of a user visiting thetouchpoint. The system 100 may capture the user data from HTML orJavascript embedded in the touchpoint, from an agent running on a userdevice, from third party sources collecting user information, etc. Thecaptured user data may include historical data about the course ofinteraction at the touchpoints already visited by the user, actionstaken by the user and user attributes, such as gender, geographiclocation, purchase habits, etc. In addition, the captured user data isstored in the user touchpoint database and is used as input for thesystem 100, as is further described below.

At step 430, the system 100 selects and retrieves one or more candidatecontent actions 195. Based on the content action optimization model 180as described above with regard to the system 100, the captured user dataand the input business objective, the system 100 dynamically determinesthe candidate content actions from a plurality of content actions arestored in the content action repository 170. The plurality of contentactions may include a tactic, a strategy, a seminar, a button, a productpresentation or demonstration, a product catalog, product pricing,information about a product, a social media piece, frequently askedquestions, etc. The content action repository 170 also includes metadataassociated with each content action identifying each content action,describing each content action and describing how each content action isused. The content action repository 170 further includes constraints foreach content action describing restrictions on the use of the contentaction, which may be in the form of descriptors, instructional videos,etc. The constraints may describe at which touchpoint the content actioncan be implemented and for which business objective the content actioncan be used. For example, a specific content action may only be used fora specific touchpoint or for a specific segment of the population. Thecontent actions in the content action repository are grouped accordingto corresponding business objectives and touchpoints based on thecontent action metadata. The candidate content actions are retrievedbased on the touchpoint the user is currently visiting and based on thebusiness objective for which the content action may be used. Thus, thecandidate content actions are retrieved based on the metadata of thecontent actions in the content action repository.

At step 440, once the candidate content actions are retrieved from thecontent action repository, the system 100 selects the customized contentaction to be implemented at the touchpoint. In one embodiment, thecustomized content action is the candidate content action that is mostlikely to achieve the business objective. For example, to determine thecustomized content action, the content action optimization engine 160identifies a user group to which the user belongs by matching the userattributes for the user stored in the user data to the user group datain the optimization model 180. Then, based on the user group to whichthe user belongs, the system 100 identifies each of the candidatecontent actions in the determined user group. The system 100 analyzesthe data associated with each of the identified content actions in thecontent action optimization model, in which the data associated with theidentified content actions within the user group include an observedpercentage of success at achieving the business objective. The system100 may select the candidate content action that has the highestpercentage of the observed percentage of success for the businessobjective as the customized content action to implement for the user atthe touchpoint.

In step 450, the determined customized content action is implemented atthe touchpoint.

In step 460, a decision is made whether the business objective has beenachieved. If the customized content action implemented at the touchpointproduces the observed behavior that is equivalent to the businessobjective, the process moves on to step 470 where the method 400 isended. However, if the customized content action implemented at thetouchpoint does not produce the observed behavior that is equivalent tothe business objective, the user moves on to the next touchpoint and theprocess restarts at step 420. At step 470, regardless of whether thebusiness objective has been achieved, the captured user data is updatedwith data regarding the customized content action that was implementedat step 450. The user data is again saved.

FIG. 5 shows a computer system 500 that may be used as a hardwareplatform for the creative marketplace system 100. The computer system500 may be used as a platform for executing one or more of the steps,methods, and functions described herein that may be embodied as softwarestored on one or more computer readable storage devices, which arehardware storage devices.

The computer system 500 includes a processor 502 or processing circuitrythat may implement or execute software instructions performing some orall of the methods, functions and other steps described herein. Commandsand data from the processor 502 are communicated over a communicationbus 504. The computer system 500 also includes a computer readablestorage device 503, such as random access memory (RAM), where thesoftware and data for processor 502 may reside during runtime. Thestorage device 503 may also include non-volatile data storage. Thecomputer system 500 may include a network interface 505 for connectingto a network. It will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the artthat other known electronic components may be added or substituted inthe computer system 500.

While the embodiments have been described with reference to examples,those skilled in the art will be able to make various modifications tothe described embodiments without departing from the scope of theclaimed embodiments. Also, the embodiments described herein may be usedto determine which content actions are undesirable, which contentactions to implement that receive the most online traffic, etc.

1. A system for touchpoint content action customization at a currenttouchpoint to achieve a business objective, comprising: a usertouchpoint data capture unit configured to receive user data, said userdata including user attributes for a user visiting the currenttouchpoint, and to determine a user group to which the user belongsbased on the user attributes of the user; and a content actionoptimization engine configured to select a plurality of candidatecontent actions from a content action repository for the businessobjective and for the current touchpoint based on content actionmetadata, wherein said content action metadata describes the businessobjective for which the content action is used and the touchpoint forwhich the content action is used, to determine an observed percentage ofsuccess for an observed user behavior for each of the plurality ofcandidate content actions based on the user group to which the userbelongs, and determine a customized content action of the plurality ofcandidate content actions to implement at the current touchpoint toachieve the business objective that has the highest observed percentageof success.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the content actionoptimization engine is configured to implement the customized contentaction at the current touchpoint.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein thecontent action optimization engine is configured to record a userbehavior in response to implementing the customized content action atthe current touchpoint.
 4. The system of claim 3, wherein the contentaction optimization engine is configured to compare the businessobjective to the recorded user behavior to determine if the businessobjective has been achieved.
 5. The system of claim 4, wherein thecontent action optimization engine is configured to determined that thebusiness objective has been achieved when the business objective isequivalent to the recorded user behavior.
 6. The system of claim 5,wherein the content action optimization engine is configured todetermine another customized content action for a next touchpoint if thebusiness objective is not equivalent to the recorded user behavior. 7.The system of claim 1, wherein the content action comprises at least oneof a tactic, a strategy, a seminar, a button, a product presentation ordemonstration, a product catalog, product pricing, information about aproduct, a social media piece, and a set of frequently asked questions.8. The system of claim 1, wherein the content action metadata for eachcontent action further identifies each content action, describes eachcontent action, and describes how each content action is used.
 9. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the content action metadata for each contentaction further identifies constraints for each content action's use. 10.A method for touchpoint content action customization at a currenttouchpoint to achieve a business objective, said method comprising:receiving user data including user attributes for a user visiting thecurrent touchpoint; determining a user group to which the user belongsbased on the user attributes of the user; selecting, using a processor,a plurality of candidate content actions from a content actionrepository for the business objective and for the current touchpointbased on content action metadata, wherein said content action metadatadescribes the business objective for which the content action is usedand the touchpoint for which the content action is used; determining anobserved percentage of success for an observed user behavior for each ofthe plurality of candidate content actions based on the user group towhich the user belongs; and determining a customized content action ofthe plurality of candidate content actions to implement at the currenttouchpoint to achieve the business objective that has the highestobserved percentage of success.
 11. The method of claim 10, furthercomprising: implementing the customized content action at the currenttouchpoint.
 12. The method of claim 11, further comprising: recordingthe behavior of the user in response to implementing the customizedcontent action at the current touchpoint.
 13. The method of claim 12,further comprising: comparing the business objective to the recordeduser behavior; and if the business objective is not equivalent to therecorded user behavior, repeating the selecting, determining an observedpercentage of success, and determining a customized content actionsteps.
 14. The method of claim 10, wherein the content action comprisesat least one of a tactic, a strategy, a seminar, a button, a productpresentation or demonstration, a product catalog, product pricing,information about a product, a social media piece, and a set offrequently asked questions.
 15. The method of claim 10, wherein thecontent action metadata for each content action further identifiesconstraints for each content action's use.
 16. A computer readablemedium having stored thereon a computer executable program fortouchpoint content action customization at a current touchpoint toachieve a business objective, the computer executable program whenexecuted causes a computer system to: receive user data including userattributes for a user visiting the current touchpoint; determine a usergroup to which the user belongs based on the user attributes for theuser; select a plurality of candidate content actions from a contentaction repository for the business objective and for the currenttouchpoint based on content action metadata, wherein said content actionmetadata describes the business objective for which the content actionis used and the touchpoint for which the content action is used;determine an observed percentage of success for an observed userbehavior for each of the plurality of candidate content actions based onthe user group to which the user belongs; and determine a customizedcontent action of the plurality of candidate content actions toimplement at the current touchpoint to achieve the business objectivethat has the highest observed percentage of success.
 17. The computerreadable medium of claim 16, further comprising: implementing thecustomized content action at the current touchpoint.
 18. The computerreadable medium of claim 17, further comprising: recording a userbehavior in response to implementing the customized content action atthe current touchpoint.
 19. The computer readable medium of claim 18,further comprising: comparing the business objective to the recordeduser behavior; and if the business objective is not equivalent to therecorded user behavior, repeating the selecting, determining an observedpercentage of success and determining a customized content action steps.20. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the content actioncomprises at least one of a tactic, a strategy, a seminar, a button, aproduct presentation or demonstration, a product catalog, productpricing, information about a product, a social media piece, and a set offrequently asked questions.